Legislation has been on debate for the past few months on whether or not schools should broaden their scope on sex education. The new health curriculum would teach about STDs, testing for them, all forms of birth control and alternate living (homosexuality).
Some health teachers believe that the schools should not take the place of parents. Parents fear what might come of this extra semester of sex education.
“Teach them, and then let them make their own decisions,” Mike Johnson, health teacher said. “Let the parents be the ones that teach the specifics.”
Johnson is not alone in his opinion that the schools should not be teaching a broader view on sex to their students.
“I do not want to take the place of parents,” health teacher Peggy Caughey said. “I do not want to go to alternative lifestyles.”
But not everyone is against it. Emma Waitzman, a West High School senior, has been an advocate for the cause of the new curriculum.
Facebook has a group called Comprehensive Sex Ed in Utah, dedicated to those that want to expand the topics of sex education.
This is not the first time that teaching controversial sex topics in school have been broached.
According to the American Medical Student Association website (www3.amsa.org), in 1936, Thomas Parran Junior, began his campaign to teach the American people the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. He sent out pamphlets, posters and wrote a book, called “Shadow on the Land,” which became a national bestseller.
His efforts paved the way to the Venereal Disease Control (VDC) Act of 1938.
With the VDC increased funding for sex education campaigns and started research for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
According to the Physician website, the next major breakthrough in sex education was with Joycelyn Elders, Surgeon General till she was asked to resign from her talk at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York City.
She asked whether or not children should be taught about masturbation.
“We’ve taught high school students what to do in the front seat, now we need to teach them what to do in the back seat,” Elders said, according to The New Physician.
The AMSA website quotes David Sundwall, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Health.
“Some people just don’t like to talk about sex; they don’t like to acknowledge that sexuality is a normal human function,” said Sundwall.”